Keep Brad Childress: A Packers Fan's Memo to Zygi Wilf

It's tough being a Packer fan living in Minnesota. All of my family and friends are Vikings fans, and I can only watch about half of the Packers' games.

But I love football. Every weekend, I watch the Vikings or I listen to them on the radio at work praying for a loss.

With Brad Childress at the helm of the Vikings, I don't have to pray very hard. The Vikings have a lot of talent on their roster, but it always seems to be misused. In 2007, there were two (off of the top of my head) games that were close ball games, where the team's best player, Adrian Peterson, was on the sideline for most of the second half.

Against Green Bay at the Metrodome, Peterson had 10 carries for 105 yards in the first half, and had two carries for 11 yards in the second half in a 23-16 Packers win. Against the Chiefs at Arrowhead stadium, Peterson touched the ball once in the fourth quarter of a 13-10 Chiefs win.

Amid fans ready to riot, Childress almost seemed pained keeping Peterson in the game for the majority of it.

In 2008, the Vikings finished 10-6 and lost in the wild card round to the Philadelphia Eagles—probably enough to save Childress' job.

The Vikings offense is painfully predictable, mostly kept alive by the talents of Peterson and a good offensive line. Bernard Berrian is another Vikings weapon, and he sees the ball almost exclusively deep down the field. Childress did try some to get him the ball off screens. It was the first time I have ever seen a play-action screen to the wide receiver.

Against the Eagles, Brad's coaching ineptitude was on display once again. In the entire fourth quarter, Tarvaris Jackson never had an outlet receiver or a safety valve until the game was decided.

After the game, Childress said he wanted to keep as many blockers as he could for Jackson, using the running backs as blockers. For years, the Eagles have gotten to QBs with Jim Johnson's blitzes. Jim Johnson has seen every blocking protection or blocking scheme known to man in those years.

The question was never whether or not the Vikings could keep the Eagles away from Jackson. They were never going to do that. The only question was how many safety valves Jackson would have.

The answer was none—and we saw what kind of game Jackson had. If you have to run screen passes to the running backs or just dump off the ball to the running back in the flat 30 times in a row until the Eagles quit blitzing, that's what you do.

But not Brad Childress.

This offseason, the Vikings will make more free agent splashes. In July and early August, ESPN pundits will base their Super Bowl predictions on those moves and predict the Vikings to be a major factor in the NFC once again.

There has been one constant with the Vikings under Brad Childress. Whenever they win a big game, or a game they are not supposed to win, they will lay an egg the next week. The Vikings can play with any team in the league—they just choose not to.

And it all starts with the coach.

If you ask this Packer fan, Brad Childress is doing a hell of a job and should get a lifetime extension. Now.